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NEW DELHI: Benchmark equity indices kicked off Thursday's session on a firm note, in line with Asian peers, after China said it will hold trade talks with the United States in early October. This raised hopes the two of the world's biggest economies can de-escalate their trade war before it inflicts further damage on the global economy.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.8 per cent, while the Shanghai composite index surged 1.8 per cent. US stock futures reversed early losses and rose 1 per cent.

The domestic currency rose against the US dollar which further added to investor confidence. The rupee was trading 28 paise higher at 71.84 against the greenback.

The 30-share Sensex advanced over 100 points to 36,857 in early trade, while the 50-share Nifty index added nearly 50 points to 10,894.

Majority of stocks in the 30-pack Sensex were trading higher with ONGC gaining the most at 4.58 per cent. It was followed by NTPC (up 4.31 per cent), Vedanta (up 3.73 per cent), Tata Steel (up 3.40 per cent), Tata Motors (up 2.65 per cent) and Bajaj Auto (up 2.10 per cent).

On the other hand, HDFC, ICICI Bank, HCL Technologies and Bharti Airtel were down between 0.40 per cent and 1.20 per cent.

Shares of Punjab National Bank gained over 2 per cent after global rating agency Moody’s upgraded the outlook on the public sector lender, which will merge OBC and United Bank of India with itself, to ‘positive’ from ‘stable’.

Market sentiment further got some boost after a report that foreign direct investment (FDI) equity inflows rose 28 per cent in the first quarter of 2019-20 to $16.3 billion from $12.7 billion in the year-ago period.

The US markets closed higher on Wednesday following the release of the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, which said the US economy expanded at a modest pace through the end of August.